D. Tjandra Kirana

Balinese detailed ornaments painter

Born in Denpasar on 29 June, 1944 and grew up in the midst of exotic Balinese landscape amongst the sweet fragrance of offerings and smoke of burning incense, D.TjandraKirana came into unity with his environment.

Since childhood, he watched with full intense the traditional and ritual dances eloquently performed in traditional dress full of ornaments, bright sunray fall upon morning dew on the grass. Across the meadow he watched villagers working side by side in their paddy fields while other were fishing in flowing stream of the subak (Balinese irrigation system). In addition to this, he recorded all of his observations of details and decorative Balinese paintings and sculptures on to his memory which he later expressed in his paintings.

At the beginning of his school age, he saved all his allowance in order to buy painting material to fulfill his obsession to put forth his inner feeling onto canvas. His talents gained recognition as he won the middle school paintings competition. Young Tjandra was very productive in capturing the nature of Bali in naturalist style leading impressionist style in the later stage.

To accumulate better understanding of Balinese culture, he equipped himself with a camera to capture the perfect moment and its object that are worth to be expressed onto canvas. However, his effort to become full time painter face many hindrances due to limited earning in supporting his family, hence he had to postpone his long time dream of being a painter. His passion for art never fade away, instead it became a very solid foundation for him when starting as an art photographer, which is a logical development in creating value to be added a meaning to his works.

Tjandra never works half heartedly as he received numerous international recognition and medals of honours, even the ARPS (Associate Royal Photographic Society) is always prominently attached next to his name on his photographs. Of course, his many photographs of rural area and events in Bali have become part of growing evidence of his excellence in capturing the moments.

His success in life has revived his old passion to become full time painter. After twenty years being an observer, he started once again to express his idea and feelings which he accumulated since his youth and from thousands of pictures of events and objects to decorative Figures, full of detail ornaments in traditional dress and beautiful head decorations. His strong memory and his long involvement in artistic world has enriched him creating variety of objects, precise toning and strong line combined with rich colors to become beautiful compositions, which put forth an elongated theme, especially of a slender women, balanced with its background.

As time passed by, he became increasingly popular. Even he was selected by the Ministry of Education and Cultures of Republic Indonesia to represent the country in around of exhibitions in Asean countries during 1991 to 1992, signifying the improvement of his quality, his techniques and the uniqueness of his works. However, as his works expressed his deeper feelings, he has to interact and communicate even more with his admirers for them to gain better understanding of his creations.

Some of his earlier works, also exhibited during this solo exhibition, provide a transitional background toward his later type of art work in still-life style. This school of thought has been quite popular since mid of 17th Century in Europe. This works whereby the subject matter is an arrangement of inanimate objects, was resulted from tidious work in expressing his idea through lines and shapes, tone colors and space. Every step was a part or a piece of strategy, designed to give back the spirit to the object whereby he discovered self satisfaction.

Tjandra uses his expression to invite the viewer and lead them into the center of his message. His ability in controlling the color and complexity ofartefacts, vase, earthenware, sculptures, batik and woven linen from regions and which is the background of various flowers, as a primadonna of this exhibition, reflecting interrelationship between multi cultural value and social complex in Indonesia with harmony. Although in several of his paintings he bypasses the illusion of three dimensional space albeit his message is very clear ''UNITY IN VARIETY".